Damir Urban

Damir Urban is a Croatian rock singer, songwriter and guitarist from Rijeka, born on 19 September 1968. He first became known as the voice of the band Laufer, and since the mid-1990s he has recorded under his own name and with his band Urban & 4.

He was 16 when he first stood on a stage, with La Bellona, a band founded in 1984 in which he played bass and wrote words and music. Laufer followed in 1986, with Urban writing the lyrics, co-writing the music and singing. Their debut album The Best of... (Corona, 1993) brought the hits "Budi moja voda", "Svijet za nas" and "Lopov Jack", and "Budi moja voda" was named hit of the year by Radio Velika Gorica. After Pustinje (1994) and an EP (1995) on Croatia Records the band stopped, over disagreements about songwriting credits.

His first album of his own, Otrovna kiša (Izabela Records, 1996), was recorded with friends as Urban & 4. "Astronaut", "Nebo" and "Robot" were its hits, it earned three Porin nominations and a special Sfera award, and in 1996 he also won a Porin for best vocal collaboration with the Rijeka band En Face on "S dlana Boga pala si".

Žena dijete (Croatia Records, 1998) is the record most often named as his best. It won Porin awards, among them album of the year, and several Crni mačak awards, and critics put it among the ten best albums of the decade. He turned down the Porin for best alternative album, saying the record was rock. In 1999 he received the City of Rijeka award.

Retro (2004) was made in Rijeka with Marko Bradaschia, Sandi Bratonja, Saša Markovski and Tonči Radić, followed by Hello (2009), the live album No mix! No sex! (2010) and Urban & Hauser (2011), made with the cellist Stjepan Hauser and previewed by "Black Tattoo". The EP Kundera (2012), Mamut (2014) and Live 2015 came next, then the singles "Dirigent", "Kuća sjećanja", "Iskra", "Div", "Pseća oluja" and "Nitko osim nas" between 2017 and 2020. His 2023 concert at Arena Zagreb was released as a live album.